During this Christmas shopping season, there are many signs around us of "conspicuous consumption" - a/k/a "keeping up with the Joneses". The Desert Fathers and Mothers offer a healthy corrective to that mindset:
"Abba Poemen said that a brother who lived with some other brothers asked Abba Bessarion: 'What ought I to do?' The old man said to him: 'Keep silence, and do not be always comparing yourself with others.'"
(From p. 72 of "In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers" by John Chryssavgis).
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